If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say right? I mean I should be able to say something about the Metro North Mall redo with it's lucrative TIF financing package but I don't. I mean I look around at floundering or ho hum retail developments all over and wonder why we keep doing what we've been doing when the market wants residences and employment integrated with it.
Metro North posts were such a big hit when I started this blog that I created its own tag to make all the posts easy to find. The lack of progress has bored me so I haven't bothered giving time to writing about the many plan changes since the TIF plan was approved because I didn't think the redevelopment had any viability. It's just a monument to asphalt parking lots and cheap retail property.
There is a development plan that I think is a step in the right direction that was recently approved by KCMO on the old movie theater site (away and separated by a massive road and parking lots from the retail). It's the dark green area in the map below. All these renderings were pulled from the attachments for KCMO Ordinance 200369.
One thing to note is the plan and map show a future street connection over US 169 which is not feasible from an engineering perspective. How do I know that? Well I did a rough design of it and it won't work with the golf facility built as it was. Someday maybe there will be a trail crossing but it needs some money and apparently there wasn't enough money in the $71M TIF to help finish the Route 152 Trail over US 169 and make the center accessible by something other than car and connect Clay County to our awesome, connected Platte County trail system. A trail overpass project has some federal money that would be leveraged and just needs some local funding.
Here's another site location rendering looking northwest. There's that unbuildable car bridge again.
What's being proposed is a five story office building. It's been rumored to be a possible location (along with a few other sites) for the relocation of the FBI building at Summit and 14th Street downtown.
I know you're here for my architecture review of the project but in this case the architect for the project used to live in the dorm room across the hall from me at the University of Illinois and could share some very hilarious and juvenile stories about the Loudmouth. I'll just say that this is the best building I've ever seen designed and he should be hired to design all your buildings. All other architecture is trash and you're just wasting your money if you hire anyone else.
Below are renderings that show the height of the building compared to the golf nets. Let me just say, I kind of wish it was taller. Those golf nets have become the defacto skyline for the northland and it would be nice to have a building with vantage of the two county area.
This is a step in the right direction from a land use standpoint. I just wish the powers that be would see the upside of developing a real mixed-used development with 5000+ permanent residents who could support the retail in the area. If people aren't driving to Zona Rosa for the nuance and compactness and Barrytowne is across the highway with plenty of big box space, what makes anyone think that they'll come back to what basically is every other shopping redo in the area?
That's the problem with approving private infrastructure only TIF's like this. The Antioch and Bannister Mall sites sat for years with TIF plans in place but no incentive or timeline for the redeveloper to use them. We're going into the latter half of this TIF's first decade with nothing but rubble and a golf place to show for it. I guess I shouldn't be so pessimistic. The leases at Zona and Tiffany Springs Marketcenter are now over 10 years old so I'm sure some of those tenants might find themselves a sweet deal to move to Metro and fill out the space. In the meantime, Metro North Crossing is still a just another suburban big box/strip mall/parking lot monument and will continue to bore me.